


out where the lightning splits the sea.

by uncaringerinn



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, allusions to masturbation, and then actual masturbation, gratuitous use of the force bond, kylo ren pining in the extreme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 16:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13345287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uncaringerinn/pseuds/uncaringerinn
Summary: The bond doesn’t die with Snoke.It remains; a shimmer threading them together across the cosmos, but it’s a yearning, pleading thing. Without its creator to wield it, it hangs limp and destitute, waiting for either one of its ends to finally pull taut.





	out where the lightning splits the sea.

She waits for the visions, to see him shrouded in shadow, hand outstretched with an offer she can only ever refuse.

But he never comes.

(She swears that the lump in her throat and knife in her heart aren’t from disappointment.)

The visions stop, but his feelings don’t.

 

It starts shortly after Crait; a fleeting twinge of something suspiciously like betrayal. A blaster-bolt to the ribs, stunning and sharp in its intensity, but then it’s gone, stuttering out like the last fire-bright burst from a dying star. She sits up from her bunk aboard the Falcon, breathless from the impact.

“ _Oh, Ben,_ ” she murmurs, furiously wiping away the tears dripping from her lashes, “ _Ben_.”

If he senses her response, there is no indication. In the deepest reaches of space, in the belly of his father’s ship, Rey cries in earnest for the man she wants so desperately to save.

 

Weeks later, after returning to the rocky island cliffs of Ahch-To, another glimpse comes pulsing through the bond: anger, so unadulterated and red-hot that her teeth clench with his fury. She clutches fistfuls of gravel in an effort to ground herself, the stones digging fruitlessly into the skin of her palms. Her meditation is all but deserted, her focus lost with his rage thrumming discordant through the marrow of the Force.

Instead, she tries to settle into that elusive calm, disperse the chaos of his surging emotions. She can feel the baser truth beneath his fury: frustration and abandonment chain-linked with the loneliness that oozes from the sting of her rejection.

There’s a brief moment when she wonders if he’s doing it deliberately, desperate to drown her in guilt, to make her _come back_ , but the feelings are too raw, too pure to be the products of intent.

She hisses with surprised irritation as the gravel finally gains enough pressure to slice into her sensitive flesh. She scatters them out with the wind and watches them fall into the churning sea below, blood-soaked and easily forgotten.

Another wave of his anger comes crashing over her as she stares helplessly at the dozens of tiny cuts now littering her palms, fresh and stinging in the sea-salt air.

Somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy, Ben Solo is suffering and the outcries of his anguish fall on her all-too-receptive ears.

So she endures.

 

The painful stretch of time only makes it worse. Despite her attempts to ignore it, to leave it stranded on some forgotten backburner in the depths of her mind, the bond festers like a rotting wound. In its decay, it beckons her to that dark part of the island, to that gaping, black hole that sang so sweetly to her when she first arrived; a song that Luke berated her for when she failed to resist it.

She doesn’t resist it now, but stands at the mouth of that yawning cavern and stares into nothing. The whispered lullaby is still licking at her ears, and she stretches out her hand for a reason she can’t explain, in an attempt to grasp something she doesn’t fully understand.

Only when the tips of her fingers fully extend into the darkness does she feel the burning embers of something wholly satisfying begin to curl at the base of her spine. Eyebrows pinched together in confusion, she stands for a moment more before the smoldering fire spills into an uncontained inferno, leaching up across her ribcage and setting her heart at a stuttering tempo. It twines over jutting hipbones and settles thickly in the seat of her core, so intense that she buckles at the knees, outstretched hand coming to slap over her parted lips in an effort to lock a startled moan from slipping out of her throat.

Agitation prickles sharply across her exposed flesh, hand still cupped tight around her mouth, kneeling in this damp, ancient cave while the slick fabric between her thighs chafes against her too-sensitive skin.

She realizes too late that this has nothing to do with the darkness sheltered within the cavern, but with a man lost across the galaxy who stupidly believes that he’s the only one to feel the way he does.

 

She wants to reach out through the tether that binds them, see if this torture can slither two ways. The light within chastises her for such vindictiveness while the darkness coils tighter, pleased but impatient.

In the following weeks, she continues to trudge through her own training, but the temptation snags like a hook in her gut, curiosity an ever-present lure.

 

She gives in one night, maybe when her own loneliness becomes too much to bear.

She scrubs the scent of sea brine and damp earth from her skin and dresses herself in a shapeless nightgown reluctantly given to her by the Caretakers upon her return to the island. The coarse, white material is still too thick to be considered truly comfortable, but her usual clothes are sweat-soaked and covered with milk stains and fish guts. She wants to be fresh for this, wants to be clean and clear-headed.

The fire burning within her stone hut is modest and she settles down before it. Deep breaths calm her racing heart, and her eyes slip closed as she takes the plunge into the maelstrom of the Force.

It’s almost overwhelming, trying to find the exact thread that links them together, like trying to find a specific note in a cacophony of blaring, off-key symphonies. She plucks half-heartedly through the endless stretch of existence, until she stumbles upon a chord that resonates too deeply, the static noise dying out, and their bond ringing clear.

She’s met with stark resistance when she gives it a hesitant nudge and after a few moments of the same gentle treatment, her tentative probing becomes an irritated shove.

The change is instantaneous. The warmth from the fire is replaced with the chill of durasteel trapped in deep space; the scent of smoke and sea fade into the stale hint of recycled air hissing though hidden vents.

Her lungs lock within her chest, afraid to open her eyes, but wanting to see the other side.

Hazel eyes slip open and her heart promptly lodges in her throat. Ben sits upright in his bed, sheets pooled around his waist, bare chest illuminated by the starlight.

Rey swallows reflexively.

Silence permeates his chamber and for eternity they do nothing but stare at one another, both of them too stunned to shatter the illusion.

His voice is soft when he finally speaks, “Why are you here?”

“I-I didn’t think it would work.” Shame crawls like a brand up the nape of her neck, she continues to stammer for something else to explain herself, “Snoke’s death didn’t sever the bond. I can still feel you.”

His eyes narrow, annoyed that his vulnerability is still so easily felt by her, “How much?”

She stays silent for a moment, he can see the way she chews on her cheek to bide her time, to find a particular answer. She wants to bring up his anger, his feelings of loss and rejection, but all her mind can settle on is the memory of soaked fabric between her legs as she fell to her knees in that cave and shook with his lack of restraint.

Her cheeks flush and her ears burn. She breaks eye contact with him to stare into a shadowed corner, arms crossing over her chest in an effort to build some sort of barrier between them. Slim fingers tangle in her nightshift, and her gaze slides down to her bare toes.

“Nothing to say,” he asks, and she can feel the way his eyes rake over her form, “No pleas for me to come home?”

She scowls at the floor, but gives no response.

“Rey,” Goose-bumps slide over her skin at the way he says her name, at the way she feels it anchor her soul, “Come here.”

She doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s reaching out for her, but she watches her toes curl, the knuckles going white against the cold metal beneath her feet.

The sound of rustling sheets is deafening in the silence, the sound of his footsteps are even louder. His scent washes over her as he draws near; the distinct smell of leather, the sharp scent of ozone, and beneath both, something more subtle, something that’s just him, just Ben.

Rey inhales sharply as his fingertips touch her jaw.

“Look at me,” said softly, with a reverence that she almost can’t bear to hear.

He tilts her chin up and just the sight of him, so close and too real, brings the all too familiar sting of tears to her eyes.

She feels childish and small, always crying in front of him as she does, but he’s so gentle in the way he looks at her, so open and understanding, that she can’t believe she called him a monster, a creature in a mask.

“Tell me what you felt.”

She shakes her head, “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come-“

But his fingers soothe their way up her jawline, thumb sweeping over the apple of her cheek, before stopping with a sharp press at her temple.

The pressure is borderline painful as he digs through her memories, trying to find what she can’t say aloud. Her anger is a sudden and viscous thing, snapping out at him through their bond, her hand coming up, nails slicing into the meat of his wrist.

There’s a moment of stillness that follows, where she knows he’s seen what he wanted, where her embarrassment should be paramount, but her fury overwhelms it. She shoves her way into his mind in retaliation, reckless and bestial.

She wants to hurt him, to wreck him, but what she finds is a memory linked undeniably to her own:

_The steam is thick, cloying with the heavy scent of nondescript soap. Left forearm braced against the shower wall, he can feel the muscles in his back, in his shoulders, pull taut with exertion._

_He needs this._

_He needs her._

_But the fist wrapped around his aching shaft is nothing but a poor substitute, nothing but base instinct trailing on the coat-tails of fantasy and illusion._

_It has the same effect in the end, the fire roaring up the line of his spine, pooling hotly in his gut. He wants to make it last, to play it out, but he’s always been too impatient, too hungry._

_Greedy for the things he can’t have._

_At least not yet._

_He imagines her twisted in his bed sheets, her hands tangled in his hair, thighs wrapped tight around his hips. The way she would feel when she finally lets him in._

_He spills into open air with a strangled groan and her name on his lips, “Rey.”_

She stumbles back, slamming into the wall behind her.

She expects to find him furious, but he only looks at her like a man determined, a man devoted.

“You can’t fight it, Rey. You know how this will end. You’ll come to me. I’ve seen it.” He takes a moment to brush back her hair, to follow the smooth line of her throat with his fingertips. Brown eyes watch the flutter of her pulse, and the corners of his mouth give the barest twitch of a smile before he leans down and touches his lips to the shell of her ear.

He murmurs, “I can wait.”

**Author's Note:**

> did i borrow that title from a Bonnie Tyler song? you're goddamn right i did. 
> 
> anyway, this will probably be my sole contribution to this fandom because i'm sad and can't finish anything. it's been a work in progress for a couple of weeks now. and i had a day off from work and the new semester hasn't started yet so this is what my productivity has been funneled in to. you can let me know what you think, or you can remain silent. take your pick, i'll be somewhat fine either way.
> 
> you can find me at tumblr under the same name, you know, if you're into that sorta thing.


End file.
